Student artists encouraged to participate

Wednesday

Mar 27, 2013 at 5:00 PM

The 57th annual Otero Arts Festival invites all artists grades 7-12 to participate in a juried art festival April 2-4 at McDivitt Center on the Otero Junior College campus. Entries will be accepted on Friday, March 29, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the south door of the OJC McDivitt Center Gym. Entries are free and open to all area students in grades 7-12.

By OJC Staff

The 57th annual Otero Arts Festival invites all artists grades 7-12 to participate in a juried art festival April 2-4 at McDivitt Center on the Otero Junior College campus. Entries will be accepted on Friday, March 29, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the south door of the OJC McDivitt Center Gym. Entries are free and open to all area students in grades 7-12.

The Otero Arts Festival showcases creative writing, sculptures, pottery, paintings, drawings and other works of art submitted by middle and high school students from throughout southeast Colorado. Students from 10 southeastern Colorado counties including Otero, Crowley, Bent, Las Animas, Baca, Prowers, Kiowa, Lincoln, Cheyenne and Kit Carson will participate in this year’s event. Over the past several years, the writing and art contests have drawn over 2,000 entries annually.

Over the years, judges have included outstanding professional artists and art teachers from Colorado’s leading colleges and galleries. This year’s visual art judges include Tim Deibler, award winning artist and art instructional book writer from Walsenburg, Colo., and Gary Holder, retired performing arts teacher and former education curator for the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center, from Pueblo.

Judging for the second time is Gary Holder, a Colorado native whose life has been immersed in the arts from early childhood. Holder grew up in Delta, Colorado.

After serving as high school theater director, then directing and designing for summer musicals, Holder helped to begin the Pueblo School for the Arts and Sciences, an arts-integrated charter school. Holder taught there for 30 years, then retired to become the Curator of Education at the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center. Holder instructed theater classes, worked with the Colorado Department of Education on state theater standards, and directed the arts education arm of the Center.

Holder has judged student art shows at the Arts Center, and he is a 4-H talent judge for the Colorado State Fair. Holder retired from the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in July of 2011. He is married to Pamela, a retired teacher, and has two children: Rebecca, a medical school student on hospital rotations, and Samuel, a filmmaker currently working for National Geographic productions.

All area students, grades 7-12, are encouraged to enter the Otero Arts Festival. Entries for the art contest will be accepted on Friday March 29 from 1 to 5 p.m. at the McDivitt Center gym on the Otero Junior College campus. Students may have one entry for each medium/technique with a maximum of six entries total per student. Entries must be labeled and hung per the guidelines that are posted on the OJC website: http://www.ojc.edu/OteroArtsFestival.aspx

The jurors will award over 600 ribbons for this annual art festival to the over 2,000 anticipated entries from middle school and high school artists of southeastern Colorado. They will also choose the recipients of Best of Show High School and Middle School and Outstanding Senior Portfolio ribbons. Judging will take place on Saturday March 30. Public viewing of the art show will begin on Tuesday April 2 at 8 a.m. The exhibit will remain open to the public April 2-4 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. There is no cost for admission to the exhibit. The public is invited to visit the exhibit and view the outstanding work the students.